By Tiernan Ray

Another week, more finger pointing about Microsoft‘s (MSFT) Windows 8 — and this time in the direction of Intel (INTC).

Bloomberg‘s Ian King and Dina Bassthis morning report Intel’s has caused the delay of software needed to conserve battery life on tablet computers running Windows 8, citing a single unnamed source.

The Intel blame follows remarks last week by Intel CEO Paul Otellini, also related by Bloomberg that seemed to say Microsoft hadn’t finished the job yet with Windows 8.

Intel shares are up 31 cents, or 1.4%, this morning at $22.97, while Microsoft shares are down 10 cents at $29.66.

Speaking of tablets, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) is starting to talk up its business efforts in advance of its analyst day meeting on Wednesday. This morning the company introduced a tablet computer running Windows 8, the “ElitePad 900.” The Elite is one of the various “convertibles” coming to market, which can serve as either a notebook or as a tablet.

Writing about the announcement, Richard Kugele of Needham & Co. notes that “The greatest disappointment for users may be the resolution of the screen, which at 1280 X 800 is noticeably lower than HDTV at 1920 X 880 and well below of the iPad at 2048 X 1536.”

“The ElitePad appears to us to be a solid effort on HP’s part, and we hope that HP has the fortitude this time to see the launch and ramp through to completion (as opposed to the TouchPad debacle).”

HP shares are up 36 cents, or 2%, at $17.41.

Speaking of Wednesday, in case you missed it, The Wall Street Journal’s Spencer Antethis morning writes that IBM (IBM) has a distraction planned for HP’s big day: It is planning an unveiling of a cloud computing push on that very day.

Writes Ante, “In a shift for a company that typically deals with the world’s largest corporations and governments, IBM will ramp up its efforts to sell so-called cloud computing services to midsize businesses.”

“The Armonk, N.Y.-based company has lined up partners to resell its services and is helping software companies adapt their products to IBM’s machines.”

IBM shares this morning are up $3.60, or 1.7%, at $211.07.

And speaking of Microsoft (MSFT), the stock got a thumbs down this morning from RBC Capital’s software analyst Rob Breza cut ratings on multiple names to Sector Perform from Outperform, including not just Microsoft but also VMWare (VMW), CommVault (CVLT), Fortinet (FTNT), and Check Point Software Technologies (CHKP). Breza raised his rating on RealPage (RP), which makes software for the property rental industry, to Outperform. Breza doesn’t give much of a rationale for the change, characterizing it instead as a “reallocation of ratings across our coverage universe.”

He adds, “To be clear, this is not a call on the quarter and we would plan to finish our channel checks over the next several weeks as the quarter closes and preview our September quarter software names in typical fashion. At this point it appears to be shaping up as a typical quarter,

Apple (AAPL) may have had a record debut for the iPhone 5‘s introduction, based on channel checks, writes Canaccord Genuity’s Michael Walkley in a note to clients. “Our September channel checks indicated very strong sales of the iPhone 5 at AT&T (T), Verizon [Communications (VZ)] and Sprint[-Nextel (S)] and also in international markets.” It appears, writes Walkley, the iPhone 5 led to “slower Samsung [Electronics (005930KS) Galaxy S III sales and weak sales from some other OEMS.”

Apple shares this morning are up $7.90, or 1%, at $675.00.

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